


Promise

by WahlBuilder



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Short, troubles of dating self-appointed saviors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 05:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10353597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Nate feels that Wade is upset and goes to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Nate, just use your words!

Wade was crying.

In the ocean of endless pain, pleas, screams, the searing eruptions of anger, the dull icy lumps of hopelessness, the biting poison of hate, Nathan felt it.

It stabbed through him as if his Psimitar had been thrown into him. Right through his core.

It didn’t matter that they weren’t currently at the same point in time. It didn’t matter that Wade would be angry with him and he wouldn’t understand why—he didn’t always understand why Wade was angry with him.

Somewhere, Wade was crying—and Nathan was always listening.

So he stepped out of the ruins of an ancient temple under the blind gaze of snake-headed statues and into the timestream, and it carried him to Wade.

It was one of his old safehouses—“old” being a relative concept, for the safehouse was standing there for only a year or so if counted by the timeflow of that current place. It was just a clean, spacious mountain house: Nathan had enjoyed his stay in one of the X-Men safehouses. The house was permeated with a subtle scent of wood, there was a fireplace, the living area on the ground floor could be used for training, the bed in the main bedroom was big enough to carelessly sprawl on, and the crispy mountain air was good for clearing one’s head. Military satellites wouldn’t discover the place for seven years at least, but in five years the house would be destroyed in an avalanche.

The living room was bathed in the rose wine of sundown—and Nathan lingered for a moment, enthralled by the play of light, felt its caress on his face. A part of him would never get over the world and time where there were no sunrises and sundowns, only bitter cold and constant twilight, and not a moment of peace.

Then he turned his eyes to Wade.

Wade was curled on the couch facing the panoramic window and the dying light.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light?” Wade echoed. As if he were a telepath himself.

Nathan landed on the floorboards and wished he hadn’t had his boots on. It felt wrong to hover near Wade. He needn’t to show his power like that.

He walked to the couch. Wade was out of his suit, face unmasked, wearing worn blue sweatpants and an oversized sweater which Nathan recognized as one of the few articles of contemporary clothing he kept in the safehouse.

Wade didn’t look at him. The wine-light was trapped in wet trails on Wade’s face.

“I didn’t think you to be a connoisseur of poetry, my friend,” Nathan said softly.

“Eh, it’s Creed. Been to the X-Mansion, and that giant fleabag is teaching kids, can you believe that? Talking about poetry!”

“Wade, look at me.” He rounded the couch and blocked Wade’s line of view.

Heartache was woven around Wade like a cocoon.

Wade sat up and tried to discreetly wipe his face on the sweater sleeve. “Sorry, didn’t know you’d come here, I just needed a place with no people but with a lot of you—”

Nathan did the only thing that felt right, and wrapped his arms around Wade. Wade went still, fragile like a newly transformed butterfly coming out of the chrysalis, then surged closer to Nathan and wound his arms around him, too, and Nathan felt a hard pull on his cloak where Wade clutched it.

“Wade.” He had to bend to him, then he coaxed Wade gently to move and sat down on the couch. Holding Wade in his arms all the while. He couldn’t have broken Wade’s embrace either.

He didn’t want to.

The cloak—a heavy thing made of furs roughly sewn together—got in the way and creased underneath Nathan, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, never, release Wade to righten it.

He pressed his lips to Wade’s temple, and wished he had gotten out of his armor to feel Wade’s tears on his skin. He opened his mind to Wade’s heartache and soaked it in.

Wade was not making a sound other than silent shuddering gasps, and the silence was chilling Nathan’s spine. He moved one of his hands, stroking Wade’s back. The sweater was chunky-knit, reminding Nathan of chainmail, and it was just as heavy, so Nathan couldn’t feel Wade’s skin with his hands though it.

Without halting his movements he reached with his telekinesis under the wool and mirrored the stroking motion. The feedback provided him with a new map of Wade’s ever-shifting scars. He listened to Wade’s ragged breathing, and Wade’s skin was warm under his lips and gift, and Wade’s hands were twisting his cloak.

“It’s that… you always go away.” Wade’s voice was nothing but broken glass—it couldn’t sing anymore. “And I never know whether you’d come back, I never know whether the most recent self-sacrifice is just a beginning or whether the latest explosion was really the last, and even if you return, I don’t know in what state of mind and body you would be.”

Nathan wove a telekinetic blanket around Wade then shifted to look at him.

Wade’s eyes were puffy, his face blotched, lips cracked, though his healing factor was already working to repair the damage. “Say something, you jerk, you…” Wade’s face twisted, he bared his teeth, and suddenly let go of Nathan.

Nathan swayed, off-balance.

“You sick bastard, you manipulative fucker, you disgusting, controlling…”

The only promise he had ever given was to eliminate Apocalypse. By any means necessary. He didn’t think he could promise anything else. It could be a threat to his mission, to everyone.

“I will always return to you, Wade. I promise.”

Wade was cursing for several moments more, then went silent abruptly and stopped trying to push Nathan off the couch. “What?”

In reply Nathan tightened his telekinesis around Wade. He couldn’t bear to see him leave now.

Wade wasn’t crying anymore, but his eyes, huge, with the last light filling them, were still wet. “What? You know it’s impossible, you are  not fucking immortal , Nate!”

He dissolved his telekinetic touch—and Wade sucked in a breath, and his eyes fell closed. “Nate…”

He reached out with his right hand instead, and to promise more was easy. “I will always find a way. And think about you before committing another sacrifice.”

Wade huffed, but the corners of his mouth curved up. “Oh, great, thank you very much for the promise to think about me before creating another suicidal scheme. Very romantic, Nate.”

He couldn’t read Wade’s mind, but could send him a wave of fondness and reassurance. “I haven’t had much experience with romance, Wade. Not before you.”

A warm hand touched his cheek. “I’ll teach you. You just need to stay. And what’s with the furs?”

Nathan closed his eyes, Wade’s mind a pulsating, living form of scattered thoughts and emotions that soaked up his reassurance and burned brighter after that. “I will tell you a story.”

**Author's Note:**

> I made myself sad while writing it.


End file.
